TCOG news

31 Jan, 2015

Tennessee Press Association convention to feature open government issues

By |2015-01-31T07:30:05-06:00January 31, 2015|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , |0 Comments

From Associated Press: The Associated Press and the Tennessee Press Association will hold their annual Newsmakers Session Thursday, Feb. 5, at the Doubletree Nashville, 315 Fourth Ave. North, downtown Nashville. The event is part of the TPA's annual winter convention. The AP session starts at 8:30 a.m. in Salon E and concludes about 11:45 a.m. It's open to all media organizations and focuses on public policy issues as the General Assembly starts its work this session. Here's the lineup: 9 a.m., New polling about Medicaid expansion and other issues by Middle Tennessee State University pollster Jason Reineke 9:30 a.m., Tennessee GOP Chairman Chris Devaney discusses politics headed into a presidential [...]

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20 Jan, 2015

TCOG elects WPLN news director Anita Bugg to its Board of Directors

By |2015-01-20T10:40:43-06:00January 20, 2015|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government recently elected Anita Bugg to its Board of Directors. Anita Bugg, News Director for WPLN, Nashville Public Radio Bugg is news director of Nashville's public radio station WPLN where she has worked since 1995 in roles that have also included Morning Edition host and assignment editor. Bugg fills the board seat representing Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors. She is a member of Society of Professional Journalists and Public Radio News Directors, Inc. She graduated with a bachelor's of arts in journalism from Murray State University, where she worked for commercial stations and discovered her first public radio "home" with WKMS. TCOG is a non-partisan, non-profit [...]

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15 Jan, 2015

TCOG files motion to intervene in Greene County open meetings case

By |2015-08-18T07:34:54-05:00January 15, 2015|Categories: Open Meetings, open meetings lawsuits|Tags: , , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government has filed a motion to intervene in an open meetings lawsuit in Greene County. One of the claims in the case is that the Industrial Development Board of Greeneville and Greene County violated the Tennessee Open Meetings Act by holding a meeting in which some members of the audience could not hear deliberations. The meeting occurred in July 2014. Members of the audience told the board it could not hear the deliberations, and when one audience member spoke out about it, he was removed from the meeting, charged with disrupting a public meeting, and put in jail. (The charges were later dropped.) The industrial [...]

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8 Jan, 2015

TCOG elects Chattanooga citizen Helen Burns Sharp to its Board of Directors

By |2015-01-08T09:11:54-06:00January 8, 2015|Categories: Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , |0 Comments

The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government recently elected to its Board of Directors Helen Burns Sharp, a public interest advocate in Chattanooga who has advanced awareness of the Tennessee Open Meetings Act and the rights of citizens to transparency in government. TCOG's Board of Directors recently elected Helen Burns Sharp to a seat on its board. Sharp is a community development consultant and a retired urban planning director who has been involved in two public interest lawsuits against the Chattanooga Industrial Development Board over violations of the state’s sunshine laws. She holds a master’s degree in government from the University of Texas, and a political science degree from [...]

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3 Dec, 2014

TCOG, SPJ-East TN: Arguments in Open Meetings case make a mockery of state’s Sunshine Law

By |2019-09-11T18:52:34-05:00December 3, 2014|Categories: Open Meetings, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government|Tags: , , , , |0 Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: December 3, 2014 CONTACTS:  Deborah Fisher, executive director, Tennessee Coalition for Open Government, [email protected], (615) 602-4080; Michael T. Martinez, president of the East Tennessee Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, [email protected], (865) 314-5256 NASHVILLE -- The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and the East Tennessee Professional Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists have issued a joint statement of concern about efforts to interpret the Tennessee Open Meetings Act that could fundamentally reduce citizen access to public meetings. (See PDF of Press Release here). The Industrial Development Board of Greeneville and Greene County and the private company US Nitrogen contend in a lawsuit that the Tennessee Open [...]

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